(((O))) : Festival Review: Download 2015

2015 saw over 80,000 people descend on Donington Park, the spiritual home of rock, for the 13th Download Festival. Download sets the standard for modern rock festivals and as a Download virgin I was keen to explore all it has to offer.

As an aging punk I was also intrigued to find out if a long weekend at the beating heart of rock music would convert me.

As any festival fan knows the music is only a part of any major festival, what really counts is the overall experience. My Download experience got off to a brilliant start, arrival, getting set up and collecting passes all proved to be a breeze (despite media hype to the contrary). The team over at Borkowski Arts & Ents. (who handle the festival PR) were a pleasure to work with and they had genuinely thought of everything.

The camper van field had ample toilets, chemical waste disposal and hot showers and I found them to be immaculate on every occasion I used them.

After arriving and setting up on Thursday evening my son and I wandered up to the campsite village to sample the atmosphere. We were absolutely blown away. What a set up. Every kind of food stall, bar and merchandise stall you could think of was there, there were two big tops, one for music and one for comedy and a full on fun-fair. And this was all outside the arena! There was also an inflatable church, a wrestling arena and so much more. I have never seen anything to equal it at a festival. It didn’t hurt that the weather was gorgeous and the sunset spectacular too.

As anyone in the UK will know the weather over the weekend was hideous at times. It was beautiful when we arrived on site, glorious on Friday morning but by the time Judas Priest and Slipknot played on Friday evening the rain was torrential, it poured down all night and most of Saturday and the whole site was turned into a quagmire of mud. Being able to be on site after the crowds have left at night and before they enter in the morning allows you to see how well prepared the festival is to deal with adverse weather.

The crew at Download did a fantastic job laying mats and bark chipping in the really wet areas and spreading straw across the site to stop people slipping. They truly did everything they possibly could to make the festival safe and enjoyable.

Talking about security the stewards and security staff were always polite, courteous and helpful even when one idiot lit a handheld distress flare inside a packed big top on Saturday. To enhance the festival security Download became the first major UK festival to go cashless this year.

Each ticket was allocated a ‘Dog Tag’ which you topped up with spending money before arrival. This was obviously great from a security point of view as there was less cash to lose or have stolen and the fact that no-one had to mess around with change etc certainly reduced queuing time, especially at the bars. Sadly my only negative experience at Download was with the cashless system. My own Dog Tag worked flawlessly but my son’s did not show the cash that I loaded on it at the same time as my own. This issue was not resolved on-site and I now face a doubtless lengthy process to get the cash back! That said I am a fan of the system and am sure that it will work better next year.

The line-up at Download was fantastic with the main stage playing host to the likes of Slipknot, Muse, Kiss, Motley Crue, Judas Priest and Slash to name just a handful, but as any real festival fan knows the real action takes place away from the main stage. I did of course watch at least part of each of the really big names sets, but it was on the ‘smaller’ stages that I found the real gems.

Friday’s headliners, Slipknot, were stunning as always. Their incredible performance drew on material from all five of their studio albums and they delighted the adoring masses with no less than five songs from their 1999 debut disc. The power and spectacle of Slipknot’s performance puts them right at the head of the table in the metal world. There were also brilliant performances from Swedish metal monsters Bombus, a stunning set from Brighton based punk outfit Gnarwolves and possibly the performance of the weekend from the brilliant Beartooth. Add to that a surprise guest appearance from Japanese metal – J-Pop crossovers during Dragonforce’s set and the Maverick stage was undoubtably the place to be on Friday.

Creditable shout outs must also go to British veterans Judas Priest who arrived onstage on a motorcycle (and why not) and went back as far as 1980’s British Steel for their setlist.

British newcomers AllUsOnDrugs played a superb set on the fourth stage and I suspect they will become festival favourites as the years progress.

Saturdays headliners Muse drew a massive crowd to their headline set and the vast majority seemed to enjoy being introduced to their recent release Drones. I must confess I have never quite ‘got’ Muse so after checking out their impressive stage show for 20 minutes or so I took my pleasures elsewhere. Chicago based punk hardcore outfit Rise Against won my prize for the pick of the Main Stage bands on the day. I loved their energy and hey, I did say I love punk.

Elsewhere Aussie metal core band In Hearts Wake were stunning and win my prize for being the nicest guys on the planet. Punk outfits Creeper, Love Zombies and New Years Day were all great on the small stages and being in an enclosed space both added to the atmosphere and provided a welcome respite from the pouring rain. The performance of the day though had to be from Black Veil Brides on the Zippo Encore stage. Their stage show alone was worth the price of admission. It is no surprise that they just won the Kerrang award for best live act.

Sunday was a day for nostalgia touched with sadness on the main stage as Motley Crue bade farewell to the UK festival scene with a fantastic set which included their version of the Sex Pistols’s ‘Anarchy in the UK’. They will be sadly missed.

I didn’t get to see much of Kiss’s set but the pyrotechnics, fireworks and the sight of band members shooting along zip lines between the stage and the sound tower was certainly spectacular. I have not seen Kiss live since around 1981 and I was really sad to miss most of their set because I was watching Enter Shikari, a band I now consider to be unmissable.

It was wonderful to see a young British act have the opportunity to headline the second stage and to bring their full production to a major festival. Their performance was simply brilliant despite the fact that front man Rou Reynolds had been hospitalised on Friday as a result of an adverse reaction to hay fever medication. As a result the band had to cancel a planned show in Bristol only the third show they have cancelled in their nine-year history.

September Mourning, Evil Scarecrow and Butcher Babies were all excellent on Sunday on the smaller stages through the day but the final four acts on the second stage line worked the watching hordes into a sweaty exhausted heaving frenzy. You could sense the atmosphere building as L7 made a come back. Swedish Metal megaliths In Flames worked the fans into a crowd surfing frenzy and Lamb Of God and Enter Shikari were simply stunning as they left the crowd utterly drained. It was a fantastic way to wrap up a brilliant festival.

I loved the Download experience, it is an absolutely fantastic festival with a great atmosphere and so much to see and do. Both my 17-year-old son and I have decided that Download is a festival not to be missed.

I look forward to the surprises next year will bring.